Jim Ingraham: Trevor Bauer puts potential ace in Tribe's deck

The Indians Tuesday didn't acquire a mere future starting pitcher. They acquired a potential future ace. A No. 1. Maybe their first true No. 1 starter since the Cliff Lee Giveaway in 2009.

It's still too early to tell, but those who have seen him and scouted him generally agree that, yes, this is what a budding No. 1 starter looks like.

This, furthermore, is what a potential No. 1 starter's early career resume looks like:

Some Trevor Bauer fun facts:

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In his last year at UCLA and his first two years as a minor-leaguer he has a combined record of 26-6, a 2.18 ERA and has averaged 12.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

Pitching for UCLA in the spring of 2011, leading up to Major League Baseball's June Draft, in which he was the third player taken overall, Bauer was 13-2 with a 1.25 ERA and averaged 13.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

At UCLA, he started 16 games in 2011 and completed 10 of them. His last nine starts of the season were all complete games. Opposing batters hit .154 against him.

College baseball seasons run about three months. In 2011, Bauer was the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Week six times and the National Pitcher of the Week seven times. In other words, he was the pitcher of the week roughly every other week.

In 29 career minor-league starts, he has struck out 200 batters in 156 innings. In 2012 for the Indians, Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 143 batters in 176 innings. True, it's major-league hitters vs. minor-league hitters, but these are supposed to be fun facts, right? Enjoy.

It's never too early to put the hype before the horse, although the Indians' newest, most important pitcher is hardly a Clydesdale. Bauer is built like and has mechanics and a delivery similar to two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum.

Two Cy Youngs? The Indians could live with that.

On Wednesday, they were basking in the nearly universal acclaim they received for their end of Tuesday's whopping three-team, nine-player mega-deal that had more moving parts than -- again? sorry -- Ubaldo Jimenez trying to throw a fastball over the plate.

In exchange for a player they were going to lose after the 2013 season anyway (Shin-Soo Choo), an easily replaceable part (Tony Sipp) and two generic over-the-counter Triple-A players (Jason Donald and Lars Anderson), the Indians received that most coveted of all baseball currency -- a young, elite pitching prospect.

Worst-case scenario: Bauer goes Matt LaPorta on the Indians and disappears into the mists of misses -- but at a cost to the team of next to nothing, unlike the LaPorta miss, which was franchise-jolting, franchise-altering.

Best-case scenario: The Indians for the next six or more years get prime Mike Mussina, Roy Oswalt, Jered Weaver-like production and leadership at the top of their rotation, accelerating a rapid rebuild back into contention.

In addition to Bauer, the Indians also acquired two power arms for their bullpen (Bryan Shaw, Matt Albers), plus Drew Stubbs, who immediately becomes the Indians' best defensive player.

He also will frequently look like the Indians' most helpless offensive player. He struck out 166 times last year, and joins fellow newcomer Mark Reynolds and returnees Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana who were all members of the Century Strikeout Club last year.

Stubbs, Reynolds, Santana and Kipnis combined to strikeout 535 times last season, which are 166 more than Joe DiMaggio struck out in his whole career.

On the other hand, over the last three years Stubbs has 30, 40 and 30 stolen bases, more than any Indians player in any of those years. Imagine the damage he could do on the bases if only he had a higher batting average than his .238 mark over those three years?

Stubbs, however, will be window dressing on this deal, which from the Indians' standpoint will forever, good or bad, be known as the Trevor Bauer trade.

It will sink or swim with Bauer's buoyancy.

He apparently, also like Lincecum, has some strong and unique views on training methods, between-starts routine, and pitch selection -- views that so repulsed Arizona officials that they were willing to dump him just 18 months after they made him the third pick in the draft.

Indians general manager Chris Antonetti, as you would expect any acquiring GM to do, minimized the out-of-the-box approach to the art of pitching by the team's new Golden Boy.

It's tough to be taken seriously as a contender until you have a true No. 1 starter. That's what's riding on the Bauer trade being the bull's-eye it appears to be.

It's a potential franchise-turning deal, which could also expose those who have been considered Indians No. 1's the last three years for what they really were.